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Saturday, 2 February 2013

Six years later, Court still insist Rev. King must die by hanging

Six years after a death sentence was slammed on him, by
Lagos High Court presided by Justice Joseph Oyewole on January 11, 2007 , for
alleged murder of a church member, Ann Uzoh, as well as the attempted murder of
five other members of his church. A Court of Appeal, sitting in Lagos,
yesterday ruled that Lagos pastor and General-Overseer of the Christian Praying
Assembly, Chukwuemeka Ezeugo (a.k.a. Rev. King), must die by hanging.

The pastor, who has been in prison custody since then,had
appealed the death sentence, citing inconsistencies in the evidence of the
prosecution’s witnesses.At the sitting of the appellate court yesterday,
Justice Fatima Akinbami, who read a unanimous judgment of the court, dismissed
Ezeugo’s appeal, stating that the prosecution had “surely and effectively”
proved its case against the embattled cleric at the trial court. The appeal
panel dismissed the appellant’s contention that there were “contradictions and
inconsistencies” in the prosecution’s evidence.

The judge ruled: “This appeal fails and is hereby resolved
against the appellant. This appeal is devoid of merit and it is hereby
dismissed. The conviction and sentence passed on the appellant on January 7,
2011 by Justice Joseph Oyewole of the Lagos High Court, Ikeja Division is
hereby affirmed.”

Counsel to Rev. King, Mr. Olalekan Ojo, had argued, in his
32 grounds of appeal, that the judgment of the trial court occasioned
miscarriage of justice for relying on unresolved contradictions and
inconsistencies in the prosecution’s evidence.

According to Ojo,
there were contradictions in the testimonies of some of the prosecution
witnesses with some saying that the cleric ordered for matches to set the
victims ablaze and others saying he only ordered for matches after a lighter
failed.Justice Akinbami said the contradictions were immaterial to the case of
the prosecution. She said:

“Not all
contradictions in the case of the prosecution will raise a doubt. For
contradictions to be fatal to the prosecution’s case it must be related to the
material fact. All the witnesses are unanimous that the appellant used
matches.”

On Ojo’s contention
that the evidence adduced by the prosecution did not show that the action of
his client was linked with the death of the deceased, Akinbami said the
evidence given by eyewitnesses and that of a pathologist ascribing the cause of
death to ‘hypovolemic’ (severe loss of blood and tissues), showed that Ezeugo’s
action was the cause of one of the victims’ death.“The evidence is overwhelming
and damning. He was offering them stone when they demanded for bread. He was
giving them scorpion when they demanded for fish.”

Rev. King was arraigned on September 26, 2006 on a six-count
charge of attempted murder and murder by pouring petrol on a deceased member of
his church and five other persons and later set them on fire.